Jimmies football gets rain-soaked 10-7 win over Doane
Sep. 23—JAMESTOWN — The University of Jamestown defense stood tall in a defensive battle as they got a 10-7 rain-soaked win over Doane University on Saturday, Sept. 23, at Charlotte and Gordon Hansen Stadium.
"It feels pretty great," Jimmies head coach Brian Mistro said. "To be honest with you, I'm so happy for the kids because they're the ones that do it. We try to put them in positions to make plays and they're the ones that do it. It's so great to see their smiles after a game like this."
Midway through the fourth quarter, the Tigers (0-5, 0-4) punter Kelen Meyer lost seven yards after he was unable to handle a wet snap, giving the Jimmies the ball on the Tigers 10-yard line. The Jimmies took advantage as Aanon Peterson kicked a 24-yard field goal to put the Jimmies in the lead 10-7. When he was jogging out there, Peterson said was completely confident that he was going to hit it.
"I was pretty excited. I like to celebrate with the boys, thank the holder (Gage Solano), the snapper and my offensive linemen really that's who put it through," he said.
The Jimmies (1-4,1-3) scored the only points of the first half when Ty Monson found Gage Solano from 16 yards out to make it 7-0 with 1:25 to go in the first quarter. The score stayed that way until early in the fourth quarter when the Tigers' Reece Zutavern ran it in from 30 yards away to tie the game up at seven.
After the teams combined to run 68 total plays in the first half with 32 of them being passes, the rain picked up in the second half and the teams ran 10 passing plays out of the 57 plays they ran in the second half.
"We gotta run the ball the whole second half and their strength was up front as well," Mistro said. "So, it was a battle in the trenches and obviously they got one on us and we got a big play that happened on the punt. It's who makes the big play and our guys were able to handle these wet conditions with the punt game and their guys weren't able to on that last one. So, for me, it's just making sure we do the little things right."
The Jimmies running backs had a breakout game as a unit as they had 90 rushing yards with 76 of those coming from Carlos Julian. It's 10 more yards than they had in the previous three games combined.
In the lead up to this game, Mistro was telling his team that somebody had to step up and make a play, and fifth-year senior defensive lineman Paul Vandal rose to the occasion as he had seven total tackles, two sacks for 36 yards, five tackles for loss for 29 yards and one fumble recovery.
"I mean I think as our position group of d-lineman we focused a lot on being the toughest sons of guns on the field," Vandal said. "We stepped up today, Tyler Dean, me and (Caleb) Ritter, I think we all played outstanding today and good things happen when we make good plays."
The Jimmies are back in action at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 7, when they host Mount Marty University.
DU 7, UJ 10
DU: 0 0 0 7 — 3
UJ: 7 0 0 3 — 10
Scoring plays:
First quarter:
UJ: Ty Monson 16-yard pass to Gage Solano (Aanon Peterson kick is good)
Fourth quarter:
DU: Reece Zutavern 30-yard run (Kelen Meyer kick is good)
UJ: Peterson 24-yard field goal
